Creature Comforts

by Creature Comforts (lit)

  Perhaps, Marcus Cargill had been working for more than just the local fairies. No one else, the Alphas included, had wanted to talk about Garrick Moser’s Beta werewolf. After all this time, the boys still got that hunted look, as if the bastard would rise from the grave to get them. He met Morgan’s eyes and lifted one shoulder, dropping it in a slouchy shrug. “Coulda been a coincidence.”

  “You do not think so.” Morgan’s calm statement brought to mind the things little Justin, then the abused half-wolf/half-wolven puppy Runt, told him that first night in the hotel, while Mark and Bailey worked out some of their problems. Marcus Cargill had continued on Garrick Moser’s reign of terror on other supernaturals. In true Moser fashion, Cargill had constructed his own basement of horrors for torture amusements. His victims’ skins or heads mounted on every visible wall space. After Mark torched Cargill’s hideout, Chase’s main concern had been keeping them safe while giving the two enough time to commit to one another. It wasn’t until later, once they’d come home that Chase used a few resources and checked the fire investigation reports.

  “Everything turned out okay. Reports said it was a gas leak.” He sounded defensive but he stood his ground while Morgan pressed further.

  “And what of the India’s pack? Did no one notice the absence of thirty to forty closely related people? A whole suburb wiped out in a matter of weeks.”

  Chase studied the intricate tapestries on the wall far behind Morgan. They appeared to shift subtly, as if in movement. Damn he was a selfish bastard. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about, to pick apart India’s story in her favor. He’d moaned and complained about how the matebond affected him. He wanted her badly, but at the same time didn’t want responsibility for her. He didn’t want to see her broken body after the Hunter got through with her. Because, that’s what was going to happen to everyone if he failed this time. “It’s not the same Hunter.” He murmured.

  Why? Duh. India killed the first Hunter. He looked at Morgan, seeing understanding and knowledge that the fairy either couldn’t or wouldn’t give out. “Why would one Hunter wipe out an entire pack when it’s not their style?” Restless, he got up and walked to the tapestry. He noted that the pictures sped up as he approached. A medieval family ground flour for bread in one corner, while nobles sat horses and hunted in another corner. “This guy’s not even gunning for us. He’s just cleaning up a mess. Someone else’s mess.”

  “He is not gunning for you yet.” Morgan’s energy and scent flowed around Chase as the fairy moved in beside him. He waved a hand over the tapestry. The threads shimmered gold, blurred, and cleared into another scene. Many other scenes. Some modern, some decades old in appearance. Wolves hunting in packs, Changing into human form. They stalked their human counterparts like wolves culling deer from the herd. Instead of killing, the culls were brought into the fold, making the pack stronger. A few strays hunted humans, truly killing them. Most died, a few lived and Changed, making some kind of supernatural circle of life. Other supernaturals drifted in and out of the scene. Some died violently, some living out quiet solitary lives.

  Hunters appeared out of the human ranks. Now the predators became the prey. The circle of life adapted and stayed whole as the Hunters only took as many as were taken. Then more Hunters, or something like them, appeared and the balance broke. These new Hunters didn’t look the same, generic, red threaded characters. They looked smaller, less strong. Packs and strays grew dark shriveled up and disappeared, not killed by real Hunters. Chase’s head hurt. The scene seemed out of whack. He tried to watch, figure out the pattern, especially as he focused in on one group. That pack called to him, the smattering of supernaturals that circled them consisted of fairies, shapeshifters, and—.

  The tapestry froze and blurred.

  “Bring it back.” Chase turned and growled. “What happens?”

  Morgan shook his head. “I wanted you to see a part of the whole. The future changes too much to predict it accurately. Understand how interconnected we are. All of us, fairy, wolven, psychic. All supernaturals. Humans as well. Do not become the very thing that haunts you.”

  “Those guys aren’t going to break out into a round of Hakuna Matata.” His lips pulled back into a fanged snarl. “That Hunter is doing what they all do. Kill. Kill. Kill.” Lissie with her dark scheming beauty, his plain conform-to-the rules wife, and Charlie’s sweet cocoa kissed baby face rose up to taunt Chase.

  “And a very apt movie it was. Humans can be very discerning and dense at the same time.” Morgan studied the tapestry as if it would offer up its secrets to him. It might have, Chase narrowed his eyes, trying to make out something, anything. The fairy lord kept up his meandering conversation. “Why do they, this one Hunter in particular, target the wolven people?”

  “Cause they’re murdering bastards. And they don’t just target wolven. They kill the innocents too. Women, children, without a drop of magic to defend themselves.”

  “Are you sure?” Morgan asked softly. Bradley made a move to interfere, then stopped, watching as something else began to play out between the fairy lord and his packbrother. The tapestry began moving too, but Chase had no eyes for it. Morgan was in his sights, his questions twisting up the truth of what Chase knew. “Hunters killed them? Did you witness the act?”

  “I saw my family, dead. The Hunters were there waiting for us.” Years of suppressed anger and hate broke his voice. “We didn’t even have the luxury of burying our wives. The baby.” Rage unfurled inside him. That last raw scene that he tried so hard to forget played over and over in his mind. “Why kill an innocent baby? Lissie and Margaret.” Remembering his wife’s name brought more memories back. Things he’d suppressed so hard that he’d lost more than the pain. He’d lost pieces of himself. He still didn’t remember anything after the blinding rage of finding his murdered family.

  Chase rubbed a hand over his face. “My wife was pregnant. Just a plain, ordinary, pregnant human woman. She went to church dammit.” Charlie had been like a broken doll tossed in a corner in a fit of tantrum. His head tilted at the wrong angle. His small arms and legs sprawled lifelessly. He shook his head as much to dislodge the image as to end the conversation. “It doesn’t matter. The pack needs protecting.” And the Hunter needed killing. He focused on Bradley, who very carefully watched the tapestry, giving Chase the illusion of privacy. “You coming?”

  “Yeah. I’ll take you.” His packbrother waited patiently for Chase to make it to his side, then rested a hand on his shoulder. Bradley glanced one more time at the tapestry, watching something Chase could not see. He gritted his jaw, nodded once to the fairy lord. Bright light exploded everywhere, blinding Chase.

  The light receded fast and revealing his own bedroom. The sound of the door made him turn. Bradley was almost out. He paused, brown eyes meeting Chase’s amber colored ones. “I’m not a traitor.” The door closed behind the other wolven, leaving Chase alone in his and Tank’s room.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bradley left the older warden, intent on making it to his own room without meeting anyone else. Why had he felt compelled to defend his actions? He’d made a lot of mistakes in his life, but he’d never purposefully betrayed anyone. But then, there was always the accidental. Those selfish things said and done that wind up betraying everyone you care about. He closed his eyes, a derisive chuckle escaping.

  “What’s so funny?” Brandon slouched against Bradley’s doorframe. His twin had developed the eerie ability to move silently even for their kind. Once he’d thought his brother the weaker one of them. Now, Bradley was not so sure. Brandon had been tempered in the fires of hell.

  “Everything.” Bradley cocked his head, listening to the house around him. Bumps, laughter, the murmurs of the Pack melded into the small house sounds. The air conditioning, water in the pipes, the faint creak of wood, foundation, and walls settling, houses had a pulse and life of their own outside of those who dwelled within. With the wolven’s exceptional hearing peace and quiet at home
was a subdued, if low keyed combination of sounds. “Nothing.”

  Pulling out his keys, he unlocked his room. Of all the pack, he was the only one who locked his personal quarters. His twin had no need to. The others avoided setting off Brandon’s volatile temper by staying out of his personal domain. The door swung open.

  Inside, the cold Spartan furnishings reminded him of college dorms. Maybe prison. That was one place he’d never been. Pushing past Brandon, the fairy magic he’d warded the door with, recognized him with a faint tingle. Brandon followed when he did not object, feeling nothing of the fairy ward. The magic knew the difference, sending him the alarm and the knowledge that another was in his private space.

  His brother took in the room from the center, scenting then circling like the true predator he was. Satisfied, he sat on the floor, propping his weight on his arms behind him. Brandon stretched his legs out before him. His posture implied trust, something that had been scarce between them since Garrick’s possession of them. Not possession, Bradley reminded himself not to disassociate himself with the truth. Garrick Moser had raped and tortured his twin brother from the time they were small children until they were teenagers.

  Still, Bradley wondered why he’d been spared what his brother had not. He could have tried harder. Done something to stop it. Instead, to save the younger ones from Garrick’s notice, he’d left his brother to Moser’s sick attentions. There hadn’t seemed a better choice at the time. Only Adam Weis and Mack Spencer had had the courage and compassion to save them from the real monster.

  “You’ve got that look.” Brandon’s voice fell flat. His eyes turned hard, almost black and angry. He looked more like the Brandon that joined the human military at graduation and left Palestine behind. The hard wary stranger who returned bore no resemblance to the shy, uncertain, Omega Brandon had once been.

  “What look?”

  “The one where you’re beating up on yourself over things you cannot change.” Brandon’s posture didn’t shift, yet the trust seemed to seep out a bit, replaced by an edgy energy that ruined the image of brotherly comradeship they’d been trying to develop. Bradley made himself crouch, then sit within striking distance of his brother. That showed some kind of trust.

  He couldn’t make himself unwind enough to mimic the passive stretched out pose that his brother had adopted. Appeased, Brandon’s dangerous tension eased. Sometimes, Bradley felt as if his twin were another animal entirely. Brandon’s patient wait reminded Bradley of a tiger instead of wolf.

  “I can’t change anything except the future and my physical form.” Perhaps atone for, but not change. No matter how much he wished.

  “Now you sound like Morgan.” The dig was subtle. Bradley accepted it as his due, extending one leg to rest on the carpet.

  “Did your mate kick you out for harassing her?” He was happy Brandon had found true love with their childhood friend. Once, Bradley had wanted Karen for himself. He’d had her for his own throughout high school, but they’d just been kidding themselves. Or Karen had. Apparently, Brandon had been her heart’s desire all along. Bradley had just worn his brother’s face.

  Brandon’s lips twitched in a real smile. The soul kind of happy Bradley could not begrudge his brother. “Yeah. The pups are driving her nuts. She’s pissed at being stuck inside and according to her, the baby is doing the Rumba on her kidneys. You should get one.”

  “A baby?” Bradley snorted, pushing his other foot out in front of him so that he was a stiff version of his brother’s posture. This whole bonding thing sucked. “No thanks. I’ll sit back and laugh at the rest of you saps.”

  “Not a baby. A mate. You deserve a good one.”

  Bradley snorted. “No thanks again. Been there done that.”

  “You weren’t mate-bonded to the demon.” In the true spirit of one-upmanship, Brandon lay back. His hands propped under his head. Bradley wasn’t fooled. This was no submissive gesture, his brother looked open, but readiness energized his every muscle.

  “Is that what you came here to bother me about? I don’t want or need a mate.” Bradley drew his knees back up, compromising by resting his forearms across them. Yeah, yeah. He’d made a whopping huge mistake by tying himself to a succubus after Karen jilted him. And some say divorce is hell. For his ex, Nicole, that was a reality. Without Morgan’s intervention, he’d still be in that sick relationship. “Hell, look at Chase. He’s all tied up in knots.” That’s it. Throw your packbrother under the bus to save yourself. Not a traitor, he’d said. Ha. Bradley knew better. He did it unconsciously. It was a part of him that slipped out at the first chance. He and the succubus bitch probably deserved each other.

  “You promised to tell me about our mother.” Brandon’s request hit him like a bucket of cold water. He’d promised, then prayed Brandon would forget again. Months had passed, and the request hadn’t been brought up again. Bradley hadn’t been saved from the hangman’s noose after all.

  “Yeah. I did.” He lay back, placing an arm over his eyes. Not in the game of one-upmanship, just defeat. How much to tell? How much of the tale would Brandon accept? “She was very pretty.”

  “How pretty?”

  “Like an angel. She had long dark hair, like us. She said we didn’t look like her though. She laughed and sang a lot, especially when everyone else came home.” He answered the coming question before asked. He’d want to know too. “Our father and brother.”

  “Did we live with the rest of the pack? Like here?”

  Dread formed a heavy rock in Bradley’s chest. Here it was, the beginning of the end of the charade. “No,” he whispered. “No pack.”

  Brandon was quiet as the implications settled in his psyche. “No pack at all?” The concept was completely foreign to him. “Not wolven.”

  “No.” Bradley waited, holding his breath for the next round of questions, paving the road to hell, where his ex-wife probably had a place all picked out for him. None came. Lifting his arm, Bradley studied his brother’s reaction to the news.

  Brandon seemed happy to quietly adjust his mindset about himself and everything he knew. The whys and hows would be next. God, how Bradley had tried to make things right. Garrick had been no gentle taskmaster. The old Alpha demanded loyalty, fear, and submission, or death. Everything Bradley had done had backfired, made things worse for anyone he cared about.

  “Okay.” Bouncing to his feet, Brandon scratched the back of his head, then gave in to the inhuman full body shake that only canines and other shapeshifters managed to do correctly. “Talk to you later. I’m going to look in on Karen and play with the pups before I go back out.”

  That was it? Mixed relief coupled with the fact that he hadn’t told Brandon any details. They played games of trust and hid from the truth. Nothing had been resolved. Bradley was just as damned as he was before. He sat up. Why couldn’t Brandon ask the questions he needed him to? “You’re right. I was thinking of making another round of the hotels and motels. He’s got to be staying somewhere.”

  Brandon nodded, leaning against the doorjamb. “Or a hunting lease. Be a good way for someone to pick up extra cash in the off-season. I’ll check with Chase. He and Tank have run the back roads long enough to know who rents.” He opened the door partially, pausing before slipping through the small space as if expecting an attack from the other side. Brandon never took sanctuary for granted, was never truly at ease.

  Guilt weighed on Bradley’s shoulders, locking his secrets closer than ever.

  * * * *

  India woke, her senses on alert as she tried to make out what had disturbed her. An inside room, her assigned quarters had no window to provide ambient light for her wolven eyes to take advantage of. The unlit hallway offered no sliver of light for her eyes to use. Dark shadows blanketed everything. Minute differences in the shading helped a little. Scent and hearing were more reliable sources of information.

  “Tag?” Stupid. Nicknames meant you cared. Chase…Charles. She needed to pick a name and stick with it.
A large man sized shadow moved towards the bed. Her nose knew him. She leaned back, scooting closer to the headboard as the bed dipped with his weight. “Chase. Did you find him?”

  She froze as his large hand found and circled her ankle. She wanted to relax into the touch, instead she kicked free. Plenty of time had passed for self-pity to turn into hurt anger. She was tired of rolling over. Pulling her foot free of his grasp again, she propped it against his shoulder, stopping his upward progress. Between them, she tried not to let the confining blanket bother her. “The Hunter?”

  The hand slid over her leg, his warmth soaking through the quilted cotton to her touch-starved skin. Her nose and ears tuned into his male scent, the deeper sound of his breathing. All day, she’d understood the subtle form of ostracism of avoidance from the other packmembers. Reggie, her packbrother, stayed locked away with computers and the intranet while she did her best to please the Alpha Diana without becoming last, Omega. It was a careful dance of submission and aggression that left her almost as tired as running had. There was food and shelter at least. India added a low growl, steadily resisting his advance.

  He laughed, a muffled rasp against her thigh. “This has possibilities.” She added her other foot when he edged to the side. His hands circled her calves. His thumbs made small comforting circles against her skin through the blanket. “Yeah. This has some major possibilities.”

  “Pervert,” she growled, angry that she was actually getting turned on. “Damn you, tell me.”

  “No, Cleo. We didn’t find the Hunter.” Faster than thought, he moved her feet from his shoulders, pinning them to the bed. His crawled up, sitting back on his feet, pinning her thighs beneath him. He caught her hands before they made contact or could do any damage. Skin to skin, the contact of rough hands circling her wrists seemed so much more than it was, holding her in an easy yet unbreakable grip. “I found your wolf.” Silken strands of hair, not her own, fell against her cheek. They slid to mingle against her shoulder.